10 former American Idol contestants have filed a lawsuit against the show, and are seeking damages of $25 million dollars each. The lawsuit stems from a letter submitted in January by New York City lawyer James H. Freeman on behalf the 10 contestants to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The letter cited ”cruel and inhumane” treatment, claiming that Idol‘s producers have only publicly disqualified 10 contestants in the show’s history, all of whom were black. Freeman also claimed that the show illegally dredged up arrest records to make the black contestants appear to be “violent criminals, liars and sexual...

A New York state high school English teacher who asked students to imagine they were Nazis and give reasons why Jews were evil could be reprimanded or dismissed, a school district superintendent said on Friday. City School District of Albany Superintendent Marguerite Vanden Wyngaard apologized at a news conference and pledged officials would personally express regret to Albany High School students who were given the assignment and their families. Vanden Wyngaard declined to name the teacher but said the teacher was removed from class and faced disciplinary action.

A protester denounces President Obama during a march near Cairo's Tahrir Square on July 7. Bitter rivals in Egypt tend to be united in opposition to the U.S. government, which has been a leading aid donor to the country for decades.Gianluigi Guercia/AFP/Getty Images To figure out which countries dislike the U.S., one quick way is to simply look at which ones are getting the largest dollops of U.S. aid.This wasn't the focus of a recent survey by the Pew Research Center. But it did emerge when Pew spoke to people in 39 countries about the U.S. and China, asking...

Unnerved by an unspoken mix of political bias and racial queasiness, the major media have chosen to know as little about Trayvon Martin as they know about Barack Obama. As a case in point, consider this boy vs. man fable spun by the New York Times' Charles Blow: A boy's blood had been spilled on a rain-soaked patch of grass behind a row of mustard-colored condominiums by a man who had pursued him against the advice of 911 dispatchers. That man carried a 9-millimeter handgun. The boy carried a bag of candy. Blow was writing seven weeks after Trayvon's death....

The Fahrenheit 9/11 director and political activist filed a complaint against his producer partner, Kathleen Glynn, on June 21. According US news site MLive, Michael, 59, and Kathleen, 55, no longer live together and court papers have say there is 'no reasonable likelihood that the marriage can be preserved'.

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul mocked Liz Cheney’s newly announced Senate campaign Tuesday, questioning her Wyoming residency in a barbed statement. “When I heard Liz Cheney was running for Senate I wondered if she was running in her home state of Virginia,” Paul said. Cheney declared this afternoon that she would run in Wyoming’s GOP primary against incumbent Sen. Mike Enzi. Asked last week about the brewing matchup, Paul told POLITICO he viewed Enzi as a solid conservative. Paul and Cheney stand at opposite poles of the conservative national security debate, with Cheney supporting a hawkish foreign policy and Paul openly...

Senator Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has said that the United States should consider a boycott of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Russia if Moscow decides to grant asylum to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Sen. Graham told The Hill Tuesday that the Russians' recent actions involving Snowden were “outrageous” and agreed that a boycott should be a possibility when asked. “I would. I would just send the Russians the most unequivocal signal I could send them,” Graham said. “We certainly haven't reset our relationship with Russia in a positive way. At the end of the day, if they grant this guy...

Bill Of Rights: A Nevada family files a lawsuit after police literally seize their house to use as a command post after entering without a warrant and assaulting family members. Isn't this what helped start the American Revolution? For those who snoozed through civics class, recent news events have provided an education on the U.S. Constitution, the bedrock of American democracy, assaulted by an administration that views it as obstructionist and irrelevant and by courts that view it as a "living document" — which is to say it means whatever they say it means on any given day. The contraceptive...

George Zimmerman was found not guilty Saturday of the second-degree murder of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla., — and many are not happy about it. Protests are taking place in cities across the U.S., and one of the larger protests is happening in New York City's Times Square. Thousands have taken to the streets to protest the verdict, shouting "No justice" and "Trayvon." There's a large police presence to ensure the protests remain peaceful, and so far they have been. The protests, which began in Union Square, morphed into a march headed towards Times Square. From Reuters: About 1,000 to...

After George Zimmerman was found not guilty of all charges on Saturday evening, New York Giants wide receiver Victor Cruz sent a threatening tweet that has since been deleted from his account. He tweeted, "Thoroughly confused. Zimmerman doesn't last a year before the hood catches up to him."

The Web is burning up with this comment that CNN's Rick Sanchez made on a radio show, which seems like he's saying CNN and the networks are run by Jews: I'm telling you that everybody who runs CNN is a lot like Stewart, and a lot of people who run all the other networks are a lot like Stewart. And to imply that somehow they -- the people in this country who are Jewish -- are an oppressed minority? Yeah. If Sanchez meant that everybody who runs the networks is a lot like Stewart in that they're Jewish, that's obviously...

One of the prosecution's key witnesses in the George Zimmerman murder trial began her testimony today and recounted how she spoke with Trayvon Martin by phone as he tried to evade the man he described as a "creepy ass cracker" who had begun following him. At one point, when he was near the house of his father's girlfriend, Trayvon apparently thought he had eluded Zimmerman. Rachel Jeantel said she told him to keep running, but "he said, nah, he'd just walk faster." Then Jeantel heard Travyon curse, and he told her that his follower was behind him, reports the Orlando...

Pro-Life Priest Calls on Pelosi to Renounce Catholic Faith By Melanie Batley A Catholic priest active in the pro-life movement said if Nancy Pelosi continues her refusal to condemn abortion, she should renounce her Catholic faith. The Rev. Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, sent the House minority leader a strongly worded letter demanding she explain her position on late-term abortion. His letter followed Pelosi's June 13 news conference at which Pavone contends she sidestepped the issue. "We simply want to express frustration that has been long-standing about Pelosi: You can't say you're a Catholic and then betray...

When bikini-clad Chelsea Chaney posed next to a cutout of Snoop Dogg during a family vacation, she had no idea that the photo would be shown to hundreds of strangers at a Fayette County Schools district seminar. An administrator used the photo to demonstrate the dangers of posting to social media. You never know who’s creeping through your Facebook profile. To prove that point, a high school administrator in Fayette County, Ga., grabbed a revealing photo from a student’s Facebook page and showed it to hundreds of students and teachers at a districtwide seminar. The student in the photo, 17-year-old...

The feds have charged nine owners of 7-Eleven franchises with hiring illegal immigrants to work long hours in their eastern Long Island stores and cheating them out of hourly wages under threat of deportation, officials said Monday. The probe is being expanded to examine 40 franchises nationwide, including 25 in New York City and Long Island. The feds have charged nine owners of 7-Eleven franchises with hiring illegal immigrants to work long hours in their eastern Long Island stores and cheating them out of hourly wages under threat of deportation, officials said Monday. Some employees worked 100 hours a week,...

CHICAGO (FOX 32 News) - Erika Harold is a Harvard educated lawyer, a former Miss America, and a conservative Republican who's now running for Congress. Her beauty queen credentials have gotten her lots of attention, but an email that surfaced today could get her a lot more. Harold is running against incumbent Rodney Davis in a primary next March. Since she is bi-racial, GOP activist Doug Ibendahl wrote that she'd be good for the party. "Just be a great face for the Republican party," Ibendahl wrote. "We could actually do, in Illinois, we could do more than talk about diversity....

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was booed onstage Saturday when she said former government contractor Edward Snowden broke the law by leaking classified documents on National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance programs. Speaking at the NetRoots Nation conference in San Jose, Calif., Pelosi told the audience to reject comparisons between President Barack Obama and his predecessor, President George W. Bush, on their oversight of surveillance programs. The top House Democrat said Obama is poised to reveal "in another few days, a few more proceedings" of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Pelosi received the loudest boos and heckles from the...

Russ Tice, a former intelligence analyst and Bush-era NSA whistleblower, claimed Wednesday that the intelligence community has ordered surveillance on a wide range of groups and individuals, including high-ranking military officials, lawmakers and diplomats.

Appearing on MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Reports on Wednesday, NBC's chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd came up with a long list of excuses for President Obama's poor speech performance in Berlin: After whining about there not being enough people there, Todd grasped at other reasons for the lackluster event: "...then you had that very distracting glass and you could just see that the President himself wasn't feeding off of the crowd. And I think look, part of it, it was hot....it can sap your energy a little bit.

A set of seven stunning photographs emerged Thursday, showing the first official glimpse of the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2012 terror attack on the U.S. Consulate Special Mission Compound in Benghazi, Libya that left US. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans dead. The grainy, scanned pictures, released by the advocacy group Judicial Watch, were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request lodged with the U.S. Department of State. They are the first images of the Benghazi attack released by the State Department. Three of them show Arabic-language spray paint graffiti. According to translations provided to MailOnline by...

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly launched a stinging rebuke to the federal government’s secret phone and Internet monitoring campaign — and suggested leaker Edward Snowden was right about privacy “abuse.” “I don’t think it ever should have been made secret,” Kelly said today, breaking ranks with US law-enforcement officials.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) warned Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) would face a conference revolt that could threaten his Speakership if he allows a House vote on the immigration bill presently being debated in the Senate. Conservatives have been pressuring Boehner to adhere to the unwritten “Hastert Rule” — named after former Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) — that says no bill should come to the House floor unless it has the backing of a majority of a chamber's majority party. Rohrabacher said if Boehner moves forward with a vote on immigration reform without a Republican majority, it would be a “betrayal”...

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who helped draft the immigration reform bill currently being discussed in the Senate, says he will walk away from the negotiations if it includes a controversial amendment to provide immigration benefits for gay couples. "If this bill has in it something that gives gay couples immigration rights and so forth, it kills the bill. I'm done," said Rubio during an interview on the Andrea Tantaros Show on Thursday. "I'm off it, and I've said that repeatedly. I don't think that's going to happen and it shouldn't happen. This is already a difficult enough issue as it...

The Obama administration is considering resettling thousands of refugees who left Syria during the country's ongoing civil war to multiple towns and cities across the United States, the L.A. Times reports.

The Russian Duma, or the lower house of parliament, passed a law banning homosexual propaganda by an overwhelming 436-0 vote on Tuesday, leading to clashes between gay activists and their opponents. "Traditional sexual relations are relations between a man and a woman, which ... are a condition for the preservation and development of the multi-ethnic Russian people," lawmaker Yelena Mizulina said on Tuesday before the Duma. "It is precisely these relations that need special protection by the state." The bill, which must still pass the upper parliament and be signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, reflects the country's strong stance...

A small town in Spain has given new meaning to the phrase "doggy bag." For a campaign to crack down on irresponsible dog owners in the town of Brunete, volunteers spent a week in February on the lookout for dog owners who failed to scoop their canine's excrement, the Telegraph reported Tuesday. They approached the owner and struck up a conversation to determine the dog's name. "With the name of the dog and the breed it was possible to identify the owner from a registered pet database held in the town hall," a council spokesman said. The volunteers scooped up...

The fisherman wanted his photo shot with a beaver. The beaver had other ideas: It attacked the 60-year-old man with razor-sharp teeth, slicing an artery and causing him to bleed to death. It was the most serious in a string of beaver attacks on humans in Belarus, as the rodents have turned increasingly aggressive when confronted by humans after wandering near homes, shops and schools. "The character of the wound was totally shocking for us medical professionals," recalled village doctor Leonty Sulim. "We had never run into anything like this before." Once hunted nearly to extinction in Europe, beavers have...

<p>I was watching “The Voice” last night, NBC’s singing competition and I could not believe the words coming out of my flat screen television.</p>
<p>It happened near the end of the two-hour episode just after country music crooner Amber Carrington had been saved from elimination by television viewers.</p>

WASHINGTON — U.S. officials confirmed that two American employees of the U.S. embassy in Caracas, Venezuela, were shot outside of a nightclub early this morning. The men were part of the embassy’s defense attaché and were hospitalized after the incident.

When Cardinal Bergoglio was first chosen as Pope, my immediate reaction was that, although he would probably not tamper with the Church’s views on sexual issues, he would likely move it to the left in terms of economic rhetoric. I based that to some small degree on his choice of name: Saint Francis is something of a favorite of progressives in the Church due to his vow of poverty and his love of animals. But even more important to me was the intellectual milieu out of which he came: Argentine populism, and his own public statements as a cardinal in...

On the surface, conservatives and progressives seem to be in agreement about what should be done about the IRS scandal: Larry Kudlow: “…must find out exactly what happened and who was involved, and then come up with a fix so it never happens again.” Steven Rattner: “…the matter needs to be fully investigated, those responsible need to be held accountable and procedures need to be put in place to ensure that nothing like this can happen again.” However, abuse of IRS power has been going on for almost 80 years. It began under FDR, not long after the IRS was...

More whistleblowers will emerge shortly in the escalating Benghazi scandal, according to two former U.S. diplomats who spoke with PJ Media Monday afternoon. These whistleblowers, colleagues of the former diplomats, are currently securing legal counsel because they work in areas not fully protected by the Whistleblower law. According to the diplomats, what these whistleblowers will say will be at least as explosive as what we have already learned about the scandal, including details about what really transpired in Benghazi that are potentially devastating to both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. The former diplomats inform PJM the new revelations concentrate in...

A recent military report on sexual assault in the military shocked many in Washington and around the nation, but a leading expert on military personnel revealed the prevalence of men assaulting other men is one of the major headlines in this study.[snip] Women are identified as the attacker in just two percent of all assaults, meaning most men who suffer assault are targeted by other men.

EVERSON, WA, May 20, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A 31-year-old illegal immigrant raped a preteen girl in Washington State last June, then took her to Planned Parenthood two months later to cover his crime. According to reports, last June, Luis Gonzalez-Jose approached the young girl as her mother was taking a shower and asked "if it was OK to have a baby with him." After she said no, he stripped the girl and raped her on the spot. In August, he took the pregnant girl to a Planned Parenthood and forced her to abort their child. She told employees she had...

On Friday, May 17, fifty-four Colorado Sheriffs filed a civil rights lawsuit in Federal District Court in Denver, against two anti-gun bills passed by the Colorado legislature in March. Joining the Sheriffs as Plaintiffs are the Colorado Farm Bureau, disabled persons, Outdoor Buddies (an organization that helps disabled persons participate in outdoor sports), the Colorado Outfitters Association (the trade association for hunting guides), the National Shooting Sports Foundation (the trade association for the firearms industry), magazine manufacturer Magpul, federally-licensed firearms dealers, the state’s largest shooting range, the Colorado State Shooting Association (governing body for the shooting sports in Colorado), and...

<p>An immigrant illegally living in Italy went on a rampage with a pickaxe in Milan at dawn Saturday, killing a passer-by and wounding four others in an apparently random attack, police said.</p>
<p>The attack, which police say was carried out by a Ghanaian immigrant with a criminal record, immediately revived a long-raging political debate over whether Italy should crack down harder on immigrants or facilitate their path toward citizenship, as recently lobbied for by Italy's first black Cabinet minister, who had immigrated from Congo.</p>

Here is something that I never thought I would write.Fr. Z kudos to Jamie Manson of the National Schismatic Reporter.One of Fishwrapâ€˜s headliners, a darling of LCWR, the openly-lesbian, Margaret Farley-mentored Jamie Manson has sobered up about Pope Francis.She has a piece in the Fishwrap today in which she tosses Francis under the bus. Be clear about this: she is wrong in her positions, but she is honest enough to state her case clearly and she sees accurately what is going on.Context: she starts with the high hopes which the liberal, dissenting LCWR-ers had for Pope Francis, how jazzed they...

Gay activists show up with dirty hands to protest Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, are denied entry NEW YORK CITY, May 7, 2013 (LifeSiteNews) – After Timothy Cardinal Dolan wrote a column comparing practicing homosexuals and others who approach Holy Communion in a state of serious sin to children who fail to wash their hands before supper, homosexual Catholics and their supporters showed up for Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral with filthy hands as a form of protest, and were denied entry. Joseph Amodeo, the organizer of the protest, said that the act of dirtying their hands was an attempt...

Veterans outraged: Tsarnaev offered burial at Arlington National Cemetery MAY 8, 2013BY: DEAN CHAMBERS Many veterans were outraged with today's announcement that Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the older of the two brothers allegedly involved in the Boston Marathon bombing, was offered someone's spot to be buried with America's honored veterans at the Arlington National Cemetery. News blogger Jan Morgan reported today at her janmorganmedia.com site that U.S. Air Force veteran Julie Frein offered her spot at the cemetery for the burial of the older Tsarnaev brother, who was killed in the firefight with law enforcement a few days after the bombing.

JAKE TAPPER: One woman still looking for answers is Pat Smith. Her son, State Department Information Officer Sean Smith was one of the four Americans killed. Pat, thanks so much for being here. I know this is not an easy time. How are you holding up?